


Tiger By the Tail

by sabaceanbabe



Category: Heroes - Fandom
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-03-21
Updated: 2010-03-21
Packaged: 2017-10-08 05:07:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 430
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/73004
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sabaceanbabe/pseuds/sabaceanbabe
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>...gotta get control, gotta get hold of this, can't make it go away...</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	Tiger By the Tail

_dead dead dead_

_gotta get control, gotta get hold of this, can't make it go away_

_dead dead dead_

_fuckers won't take it away_

_nobody can do this but me_

_nobody can help_

_dead dead dead_

Ted Sprague is no longer aware of his surroundings. All he knows, all he's capable of knowing, is this curse inside his head, the one that killed his wife – _dead dead dead Karen's dead dead dead_ – the one that burned huge, gaping holes in their home. The one those _mother fuckers_ put in his head.

_won't take it away_

He feels it burning inside him, welling up to poison the very air he breathes, the air Karen breathed until it killed her. Until he killed her.

"KAREN!" he shouts, his body rigid with tension, with uncontrolled, uncontrollable power.

_gotta control this_

If he can just take control of it, even if only for a little while, then it won't matter anymore, what they've done to him, it won't matter that they won't take this nightmare away. Because if he can take control, if he can _make_ something happen instead of _letting_ something happen, then he can make sure the fuckers can't do this to anyone else.

A sudden calm comes over him. The background noise in his brain fades and is gone. Even the rage subsides, although a detached part of him understands that it will come back, that it isn't gone, only banked.

Closing his eyes, Ted listens to the stillness inside, becomes aware that it isn't a stillness at all, but rather there is so much going on inside him that it's become a blur. The stillness is a whisper, white noise caused by motion on an atomic level within his body. He concentrates on that white noise, letting it flow through and around his consciousness until he can pick out the individual atoms.

And everything falls into place, like the pieces of a puzzle.

Ted takes hold of one of those atoms. It fights him, not out of malice, but out of frenetic energy. It can't not move, and yet he is forcing it to be still. Still…

Still…

Delving sharply into its core, Ted splits it. Where there was one, now there are two. And then two more. Eight. And on into infinity, each split generating its own power.

That power surges through him, threatens to spiral out of control, but he chokes it back, forces it to his will and then –

Ted opens his eyes to a ball of pure energy sitting in the palm of his hand.

~~fin~~


End file.
